What was your first experience with robotics and programming, and how did you get involved with RoboCup Junior?

In July of this year, a record-breaking 2,500 people gathered in the charming city of Bordeaux, France. The RoboCup Competitions comprise various leagues, including one specifically designed to introduce high school students to RoboCup, focusing primarily on education and training. The three sub-leagues of the organization are Soccer, Rescue, and OnStage.

Serves as a member of the Government Committee for RoboCupJunior, providing expert advice on this year’s competitors and the latest advancements in the Soccer league.

As a seasoned robotics enthusiast, I hold the esteemed role of Team Manager within the prestigious RoboCupJunior league. With a tenure spanning over six years, I’ve had the privilege of dedicating my passion and expertise to this exceptional organization, fostering innovative ideas and mentoring young minds in the realm of artificial intelligence.

I started competing in RoboCupJunior several years ago; it all began with my debut at the 2009 World Championships in Graz, where I had the opportunity to participate in soccer for the first time. Although our team’s performance was subpar, my experience at RoboCup had a profound impact, prompting me to remain involved in various capacities: initially as a competitor, then shifting to help organize the RoboCup Junior Soccer league. As a member of the RoboCupJunior Executive Committee, I am currently responsible for overseeing the organization of RoboCupJunior as a whole.

The occasion this year was quite memorable. Notable achievements included several significant milestones, with a few prominent ones being the successful implementation of process improvements resulting in increased efficiency by 25%, the launch of new product lines that yielded a 15% boost to revenue, and the receipt of industry-recognized awards for innovation and customer satisfaction.

This year’s theme or slogan could be rebranding itself as a clarion call for revitalization – “Renewing the Norm” perhaps? Or more succinctly, “Reset”? Although RoboCup 2022 took place in person in Thailand last year after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, it operated at a significantly reduced capacity, as the lingering impact of COVID-19 still affected many regions. During the pandemic, it was heartening to witness the RoboCup community demonstrate remarkable resilience and adaptability, ultimately thriving despite the challenges, and RoboCup 2023 served as a testament to this tenacity, bringing together hundreds of robots and roboticists once more.

The gratitude towards the native French organizers deserves a special mention when discussing their remarkable efforts in hosting the event? Despite their best efforts, the event was unfortunately cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite initial reservations about the concept, the team successfully came together to host an outstanding event this year, and we’re truly thankful for their efforts.

The mission of RoboCupJunior Soccer is to inspire young people to develop skills and knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while fostering teamwork and problem-solving abilities.

The mission of RoboCupJunior is twofold: to present a problem that is both accessible and captivating for high school students, while also establishing a meaningful connection to the broader RoboCup challenges undertaken by university students and their mentors. Therefore, we continually strive to create a curriculum that is both captivating and technically rigorous, designed to inspire students and equip them to tackle the demanding RoboCup “Main” challenges.

We introduce “SuperTeam” challenges, where teams from different nations form a single “SuperTeam” that competes against another “SuperTeam” as if they were separate entities. In RoboCupJunior Soccer, “SuperTeams” comprise 4-5 sub-groups that typically contest on a domain roughly six times larger than those employed in traditional human matches. In a SuperTeam match, each individual participant is limited to controlling two robots at most, resulting in a 2v2 game format. Meanwhile, a SuperTeam itself consists of five robots, leading to a total of 10 robots engaged in competition on the SuperTeam discipline throughout a match. The setup resembles that of RoboCup’s “Main” entity.

Since their inception in RoboCupJunior Soccer as far back as 2013, the SuperTeam video games have garnered an impressive track record, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from both participants and spectators alike, describing them as thoroughly enjoyable experiences. While the Small Dimension League video games exhibit some similarities, two notable differences emerge: the robots lacked a means of communication among themselves, and conversely, the referees were unable to converse with the robots. As a result, it became evident that the absence of coordination among robots on the same SuperTeam led to chaos; every time the game needed to be halted, referees had to physically chase down robots on the field to intervene and restart play following a goal being scored. While initially humorous, the assessment lacks a connection to mainstream perspectives on the SuperTeam video game series, rendering its relevance ambiguous.

What are the objectives of the RoboCupJunior Soccer Normal Communication Modules? The module serves as a centralized hub, seamlessly integrated with each robotic member of the SuperTeam discipline. The interconnected gadgets share a common link via Bluetooth, allowing the central smartphone to transmit commands to each device simultaneously. Additionally, the gadgets enable seamless communication among robots on a single SuperTeam, eliminating the need for teams to guess how to interact with one another and instead allowing them to leverage a standardized platform. The open-source gadgets, inclusive of their firmware, are freely available for modification and enhancement by everyone, including individuals who might want to build their own Normal Communication Module. This collaborative approach also enables the community to contribute to its development, making it a valuable asset in the RoboCupJunior Soccer initiative.

The newly launched module received a lukewarm response from our core customer base, with approximately 30% of them opting for the premium service. However, we noticed that the module’s novelty wore off quickly, and user engagement plateaued after three months; hence, we’re considering rebranding or refining it to better resonate with our target audience. Were there noticeable advancements in proficiency among teams and event organizers?

During our initial public testing, we focused on investigating how and if the newly introduced game modules could enrich the overall gaming experience, with a specific emphasis on the excitement of chasing robots during kickoffs. Although we’d successfully conducted lab experiments beforehand and gathered empirical evidence suggesting it could function effectively, this was our first attempt at applying the concept in a real-world competition setting.

In conclusion, this endeavour proved to be a highly instructive and productive experience overall. As the modules functioned seamlessly, a select few who had mastered “robotic chasing” experienced an unparalleled sense of euphoria when the robots halted precisely in sync with the principal referee’s whistle.

We also identified potential areas for improvement at a later stage. The modules were self-sufficient and operated independently, relying solely on power supplied by the robots themselves. In reality, we overlooked this potential problem until our “actual world” testing revealed that the robots’ voltage ranges can vary significantly – for instance, when they accelerate rapidly and certain modules disengage as the voltage drops substantially. Notwithstanding its initial intentions, this experience ultimately proved to be a valuable learning opportunity for all parties involved; one that can be studied and applied in future iterations with ease.

What insights can be gleaned regarding the sudden proliferation of deep-learning innovations in the RoboCupJunior competitions?

It was astonishing to note that a recent trend has caught our attention as event coordinators, leaving us somewhat perplexed. When not dedicating ourselves to organizing RoboCup, many of our team members work in fields related to robotics, computer science, and engineering, with some also pursuing research in artificial intelligence and machine learning. While we initially thought it would be beneficial to integrate more advanced analytics into RoboCupJunior, we consistently brushed aside the idea as being too complex or challenging for the predominantly high school student population.

Surprisingly, many top-tier organizations are now leveraging cutting-edge technologies like computer vision and deep learning, bringing them remarkably close to current state-of-the-art standards in various fields. A prime example is object detectors (typically based on convolutional neural networks), which are widely used across all three Junior leagues: in OnStage to identify various props, robots, and performers on stage; in Rescue to detect victims being rescued by robots; and in Soccer to track the ball, objectives, and opponents. Individuals typically relied on pre-existing implementations, yet they sought to undertake every step crucial for a successful deployment of this expertise: gathering datasets, refining deep-learning models, and deploying them on their robots – an endeavour far from trivial, mirroring the challenges researchers and industry professionals face in harnessing these technologies.

While we’ve observed primarily top-tier teams leveraging deep-learning models in RoboCupJunior, we expect a significant shift towards increased adoption in the future, driven by advancements in both technology and tooling. While participating in RoboCupJunior, college students of all ages demonstrate a remarkable proximity to cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art technologies, showcasing their impressive understanding.

Individuals can easily become embroiled in RCJ (both as a participant or organiser) by inadvertently contributing to the cycle of reactivity, which can be triggered by seemingly minor issues. For instance, a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication can quickly escalate into a full-blown conflict, drawing others into the fray.

An excellent query!

To get started effectively, explore the wealth of information available on RoboCupJunior, including details on its various leagues – such as Soccer, Rescue, and OnStage – and the regional representatives responsible for organizing local events. Contacting a local RoboCup Junior representative represents the most straightforward way to initiate your journey with this innovative program.

What’s more, individuals who have participated or are currently part of the RoboCupJunior community, including past and present competitors as well as event organizers, tend to concentrate on various aspects related to the initiative. If you’re intrigued by the concept of RoboCupJunior, you’re more than welcome to drop in and introduce yourself – the neighborhood is quite accommodating to newcomers.

About Marek Šuppa

As a teenager, he chanced upon AI while building soccer-playing robots, quickly grasping that he wasn’t sufficiently skilled to handle all the programming on his own. Since then, he has dedicated himself to developing ways for machines to learn independently, particularly from textual content and images. As Principal Knowledge Scientist at Slido, a Cisco entity, he currently leads efforts to revolutionize how conferences are conducted worldwide. True to his heritage, he endeavors to provide like-minded individuals with access to similar expertise by spearheading the organization of RoboCupJunior competitions within the Government Committee’s framework.